>We hypothesized that T administration would increase participants’ tendency to rely on their intuitive judgments, reduce inhibition of incorrect prepotent response, and therefore impair CRT performance relative to placebo. To rule out various confounding factors, namely T’s potential influences on engagement, motivation, or arithmetic skills, participants took part in an additional math task as a control.
alright okay, so, the hypothesis is, more t = more impulsive, not more t = dumber, let's see where it goes
>Finally, our study further allowed testing two previously reported associations between CRT performance and the 2D:4D digit ratio, a purported proxy of prenatal T exposure (Bosch-Domènech, Brañas-Garza, & Espín, 2014)
lol, that's gonna be good
>Methods
>Two hundred and forty three males (mostly college students, see SOM, Table S1 for demographic details) were randomly administered either T (n = 125) or placebo (n = 118) topical gel under a double blind between-subjects protocol
okay so, gel, not injectable (unlike what omar isuf's video says). let's see what the protocol is
>The timeline of our experimental procedure is illustrated in Fig. 1. Participants first arrived at the lab at 9:00 in the morning. [...] Afterwards, participants proceeded to a designated room for T or placebo gel application.
same day... and gel... alright this is already looking bad
>The experiment consisted of a battery of seven behavioral tasks and none included feedback about the participants’ monetary payoffs (to avoid endogenous changes in T from changes in payoff).
jesus christ
>Four saliva samples were collected throughout the experiment to achieve high-resolution monitoring of hormonal changes during the experiment and control for their influences
>We chose to use saliva samples to avoid potential stress that might be induced by multiple blood draws throughout the experimental session
saliva samples alright okay